Bobby Gordon
For most people in Los Angeles, it was 11:45 a.m. on a Wednesday. For everyone crowded into the little Santa Monica pub, or huddled around small televisions elsewhere, it was 9:45 p.m. (the time in Athens, Greece). The day of the week didn’t matter.
The work week was put on hold for a few hours during the Champions League final between Liverpool and AC Milan. While the rest of the city was filing paperwork and delivering lunches to boardrooms, small enclaves of passionate football fans watched what is the European equivalent of the Super Bowl. No, more than that. This was a two-years removed rematch of one of the best comebacks in Champions League history when Liverpool came back from down 3-0 to beat AC Milan.
It was a sunny day in Los Angeles. The room had the faint amber glow ubiquitous to pubs, a phenomenon that has the ability of making the daylight outside seem like a joke. This was not Los Angeles on a weekday. It was a weird world where you looked at the front row in front of the televisions and saw a 12-year-old wearing a Steven Gerrard jersey sitting next to his dad.
Some people might frown on a 12-year-old in a bar. I didn’t see him drinking, he didn’t block anyone’s view, and he was wearing a Liverpool jersey. He and I are cool.
For passionate football supporters in the U.S., there is this process of stepping out of the daily routine, screaming and shouting in a dark room for an hour and a half, and then rejoining the ranks of people who have absolutely no idea where you’ve been, and wouldn’t really understand if they did know. It is like watching the World Series in Romania.
For the most part, the room was red wall to wall with Liverpool supporters, from big expatriate Englishmen to American fans who’d gotten their hands on Liverpool jerseys. In other words: me.
I’ve read a little bit about European football and the fans. Enough to be a little bit jaded upon hearing how, “the walls of the bar resonated with the fans cheers.”
I don’t know about the walls resonating, but being in the middle of the chants as the game started, I couldn’t help but be envious. The excitement felt surreal but tangible. And far more palpable than abstract. Like you could grab on to it and live in it for a while.
I wanted it. I don’t know if it’s grass-is-greener syndrome, but American sports aren’t like this. It might be that they are scheduled for prime time, which fits too well into the American routine, but I wanted to be able to chant along. It made me want to have been at Anfield (Liverpool’s stadium) this season and to be in Athens on Wednesday.
At kickoff, the lights were turned off and the game began. There were shouts at any play, any foul, any momentum shift.
Milan’s Kaká pulled a nasty move, spinning the ball around and past a defender. The 10 Milan fans by the bar yelped.
A few minutes later, a Liverpool player pulled the same move going back the other way. The entire bar erupted.
I must say I feel bad. My friend tried to come join me at the pub and got turned away. As you can guess, it’s not because he got carded (he’s 21 anyway) but because the bar was at capacity. Had I not driven my other friend to the bar, I would have found another place to watch the game, but given the circumstances, he had to walk to the bus by himself.
It’s not right. Someone should not have to walk alone to a bus stop when he is trying to watch a game of a team whose slogan is “You’ll never walk alone.” The irony is just not fair. I owe you a sixer.
And then the ugliness of the game ensued. Milan scored a lucky goal. Yes, lucky. For anyone who would care enough to read this far, you probably care about the game and should know, it was lucky. It was also Pirlo’s goal. He deflected a free kick off Inzaghi into the goal, and Inzaghi got the credit. Terrible.
Inzaghi’s second goal was a beautiful finish. I still hate him. I may be biased, but I feel like I objectively dislike watching him play.
When Liverpool pulled within a goal, we went crazy. And then, when there was supposedly three minutes of extra time left, the referee called the game at 2:45. This after a substitution in extra time. That robs Liverpool of at least a minute of time to try and equalize.
When the whistle blew, everyone except for the 10 people at the bar, wondered what had happened, and then slowly came to room temperature to return to the rest of our lives.
Most of us, that is. As I was leaving, I saw a woman crying. She was wearing a Liverpool jersey and had a giant Abercrombie & Fitch bag, and I remembered I was in Los Angeles.
E-mail Gordon at bgordon@media.ucla.edu or call a CSO if you are walking alone.